President Donald Trump’s slashing of State Department and USAID funding has triggered the collapse of LGBTQ activist organizations across the globe — and the left is panicking.
A Thursday report from Outright International surveyed 229 LGBTQ groups in 94 countries and confirmed what patriots already knew: American taxpayers were bankrolling radical gender ideology exports worldwide under Biden. Trump ended it.
“Under Joe Biden, it was the policy of the United States to export abortion and radical gender ideology all around the world. That is what they did with your tax money.” — VP JD Vance
90 percent of the organizations surveyed say they’ve lost U.S. taxpayer funding since January 2025. Of those, 49 percent lost more than half their total budget. Another 40 percent report being at severe or immediate risk of closure.
The carnage started hours after Trump’s second inauguration. Executive Order 14169 froze nearly all U.S. foreign assistance, including programs that had sustained hundreds of LGBTQ movements for over a decade.
Days later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio approved a waiver exempting “lifesaving humanitarian assistance” from the freeze — while specifically naming “transgender surgeries” as not qualifying as lifesaving work.
By February 2025, termination notices were arriving. What was initially framed as a temporary freeze hardened into a permanent restructuring.
Where exactly was your money going? The report provides receipts.
In the Dominican Republic, Diversidad Dominicana used grants to identify and prepare LGBTQ candidates for elected office — what the report described as a “pipeline for queer political participation.” The group now claims it’s struggling to keep the lights on.
In Hungary, the State Department funded the Háttér Society, which trained activists to respond to “anti-gender discourse.”
In Kyrgyzstan, grants funded feminist queer collectives. In Turkey, the May 17 Association had to close its trans-led “climate crisis and emergency response program,” shutter an office, and lay off staff.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast cataloged additional spending items in a February 2025 White House briefing:
- $15 million for condoms to the Taliban
- $3.3 million for “being LGBTQ in the Caribbean”
- $1.5 million to promote job opportunities for LGBTQ individuals in Serbia
- $20,600 for a drag show in Ecuador
- $47,020 for a transgender opera in Colombia
- $32,000 for an LGBTQ-centered comic book in Peru
Mast’s analysis was part of the White House’s commitment to cancel $5 billion in foreign aid that “violates the President’s America First priorities.”
The strategy backfired in more ways than one. Reports from the Center for Strategic and International Studies show that leaders in the Middle East and North Africa often pointed to such programs to radicalize populations against the West — framing sexual deviation as the natural end result of Western ideals like freedom of speech and rule of law.
A number of Western countries try to impose their values on #Qatar. No respect to national traditions and values of Qatar as an Islamic state. Why are they doing that? Yet another example of totalitarian trends in the policies of the West.
— Mikhail Ulyanov (@Amb_Ulyanov) November 25, 2022
That allowed powers like Russia to step in and pledge to work with those countries while maintaining their “traditions and values,” the Center said.
Trump didn’t just cut the funding. His rhetoric reshaped the discourse.
“When Trump said there are only two genders, it affected discourse and stakeholders. We faced more stigma in those forums,” said Manisha Dhakal, an Executive Director in Nepal. “People were scared to participate in the program.”
Dhakal said the organization “had to lose our identity as transgender women” and adapt to still qualify for remaining funds.
Vice President JD Vance framed the reversal at the March for Life in January.
“It’s not our job as the United States of America to promote radical gender ideology,” Vance said. “It’s our job to promote families and human flourishing.”
He continued: the administration would be “expanding this policy to protect life, to combat diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the radical gender ideologies that prey on our children.”
The report’s findings come after more than a decade of U.S. funding. In 2011, the State Department joined with the Global Equality Fund, spending more than $100 million in the first 10 years to LGBTQ organizations and human rights defenders in over 100 countries.
That era is over. Outright International says the report’s central argument is directed at private philanthropy and foundations — not the U.S. government — to pick up the slack.
Translation: American taxpayers are no longer footing the bill for drag shows in Ecuador.
